It’s time to get ruthless.

So says Ipswich Town striker David McGoldrick after a familiar ‘so close, yet so far’ story at the weekend.

Just like at Reading (1-2) and QPR (0-1), the Blues played some fantastic football during Saturday’s visit of Leeds. Once again though that good work was restricted to a small portion of the match and they came away with another single goal defeat (1-2).

“Obviously we did well at the start, but at the end of the day we didn’t get a result,” said McGoldrick, who put the Blues in front with a fine finish.

“We can’t keep performing alright and not getting anything.

“It’s happened in the two away games and it’s happened again today. That’s got to change. We’ve got to be more ruthless.

“We haven’t been bossed off the pitch by anyone, but three defeats are three defeats – it doesn’t matter what the score is.

“We’ve got to go to Birmingham (on Saturday) and grind something out now. We’ve got to be horrible and really grind something out.”

Blues boss Mick McCarthy said: “There’s praise for the way we started the game, but a kick up the backside for not putting them to the sword when we had the chance.

“It’s a bit boring to keep saying ‘oh we played well and got beat’. I’m not into that to be quite honest.”